I finally did it! This trip has been on the Top 5 of my bucket-list trips to visit within the United States. Utah's Mighty 5 refers to the state's most iconic National Parks, that consists of Zion, Bryce Canyon, Capital Reef, Canyonlands and Arches National Park. I'll break down each park in individual posts as part of the Mighty 5 campaign for the month of September, but I'll share my route and dates now.
So my original plan for this trip was to visit over a span of 7-8 days, but due to COVID and my work schedule, I had to do it in 5. Not ideal, but if you're a single traveler that likes to be on the move, it's possible to tour Southern Utah in just 5 days...
I traveled during the third week of August 2021, so COVID was still in full swing, but much more relaxed than COVID precautions in 2020. I decided to fly in and out of Salt Lake City, UT (as opposed to Las Vegas) because of the price and availability for conversion vans listed on RVshare.com. This was my first experience with both living out of a conversion van and renting off of RVshare. Highly recommend both if you're taking a road trip that can return the vehicle to its original location. RVshare is exactly what it says; owners that rent out their RVs to travelers for a nightly rate. This was the best option for me, as instead of paying for a car rental and nightly stays, I had it all in one and for less than $100/night! If you're thinking of a similar travel plan as me, this was the exact vehicle that I rented. The van is a bit of a home-build for sure, but the quirks are what made it so fun and it ran like a beast! RVshare requires a $500 refundable security deposit that you take the hit on up front, but I was refunded within 72 hours of returning the vehicle. All communication and payments with the owner was done through the app so I felt secure and everything was documented.
As I was planning the trip, I noticed a lot of people traveled the National Park loop by first starting at Arches park. In my case though, my first day of travel was on a Monday, and with the amount of expected foot traffic for Zion National Park, I assumed there'd be less people on a Monday, as opposed to later in the week on a Friday. Although Zion was still pretty packed, it was MUCH better for my lifestyle to tackle Zion first. I, of course, was going to do Angel's Landing, and I was glad to have taken that hike early on in my trip. The original route clocked out at over 900 miles round-trip. Bit of a leap, but I ended up racking up over 1200 miles! Paid a little extra for the over-mileage rate but totally worth it!
Last detail that was left to plan was, essentially, a nightly parking spot! The van that I rented was actually configured to be 100% off-grid if needed. Since this was my first #vanlife experience and didn't fully understand what I was getting into, I decided to book a campground site with electric and water hook-ups for each night. Being a single female traveler, I also felt safer being at a larger campground with families around and cell phone service. I found that local campgrounds, especially those on actual national park grounds, didn't have reliable cell phone service and no Wi-Fi. Being a full-time online college student as well, I couldn't go a week without having to do at least SOME homework, so the Wi-Fi was also worth the extra $20/night for each location.
Being 5 total travel days, I essentially visited a park a day, exploring at least 1 hike per park. This trip has long been anticipated for me and I highly recommend this trip to anyone from single females to large families traveling by RV. COVID has made traveling a bit of pain right now, yet alone the impossibility of traveling anywhere internationally. However, this was a great destination option that offered a variety of activities with limited interaction between people. Nothing to do with COVID, I personally prefer limited numbers of people all the time anyway...Be sure to follow my journey through each park during my Utah's Mighty 5 campaign during the month of September.
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